Ties that Bind
by CrookedSpoon
Summary: Series of unrelated drabbles and ficlets. Still in the process of archiving. Latest: Masaki/Ryuuken
1. Blood Sacrifice

******Title**: Blood Sacrifice**  
Characters/Pairing**: Masaki/Ryuuken  
**Rating/Warnings**: PG-13; Being very vague here  
**Word Count:** 300  
**Disclaimer**: Standard disclaimers apply.  
**Notes:** Written on Apr 23, 2013 for the prompt "This isn't personal." at 31_days. A kind of what if exercise. If anyone has something else about the pairing or just wants to talk about them, please drop me a line. I need to quell the desire to write more.

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"I'm sorry, they expect us to."

His words - spoken as though he had no part in this, as if only her life were affected - set her eyes aflame. _What about you?_ she wants to ask, not without reproach. _Why did you bow to their will if it's so disagreeable? Why did you not oppose them when you could?_

But it's not his fault. Once the ceremony started, it was out of his hands. He didn't want this either, did he?

"It's alright. I don't blame you."

Expectation, duty, and sacrifice constrict his life; there's nowhere they don't breathe down his neck. Without room for self-fulfillment, how does he grow, she wonders. Did he never want to break out?

_You'll find no happiness in following a path that others dictate._

What an easy thing to say. She herself couldn't refuse, couldn't argue that this is unfair, that there was no love involved, because - what role has love in this? It's just another task they must fulfill.

"I should be sorry. That they couldn't find you a better match."

They're both on the altar now, bleeding into the ridges. Katagiri told her this could happen: blood on the sheets, but not how. Blood - the key component, the reason, the future. His blood and hers, and nobody else's.

"Don't be silly."

He's gentle enough; he tries, but his heart's not in it. The Quincy cross - a gift from his father, to commemorate this day - dangles between their chests, glinting in the half-light.

So they share the same burden. She will shoulder it; the least she can do to repay him.

"There is no better match."

The cross chills her skin, and when his mouth claims hers, her soul screams for another.

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Thanks for reading!


	2. Dead End

******Title**: Dead End**  
Characters/Pairing**: Renji  
**Rating/Warnings**: PG-13; implied character death, angst  
**Word Count:** 650  
**Disclaimer**: Standard disclaimers apply.  
**Notes:** Written on Nov 5, 2012 for the prompt "the ghost of his last laugh" at 31_days, before we knew what happened to Byakuya and Soul Society.

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Isane would be more than displeased to see him on his feet, when he had barely rested enough. Renji could not lie still though; his mind was aflame with the images of all that had happened before darkness had taken him.

Restlessness had gripped him and dragged him out of doors. If his body hurt when lying, he could as well be moving. Pain was inevitable.

Gravel crunched beneath his sandals and blood dripped onto the stones, large and small, as he stepped over them. His wounds had been dressed, but his bandages sported ever-growing blossoms of red. The need to spread out their ressources had forced the Fourth Division to mend only the fatal injuries in a first step, but not the skin that covered them.

So now he mixed his fresh blood with the dried flecks on the ground – it might have been his, in places. It had nothing magical, this adding his life to one that had bled out. He knew that. There had never been much life in Soul Society to begin with.

The sight before him was not unlike the rest of Seireitei, where holes gaped in blasted walls like sockets missing their eyes. Trees had either fallen, burned or tossed their leaves; dust and ash had settled over everything. Nothing stirred.

The last time here at this spot, he had collapsed torn and bleeding onto the body he had wanted to carry away. It still bore the evidence of the gruesome battle that had taken place here: a blood-splattered crater in the wall and red-tipped debris all around. Rain could wash it all off, but it could never remove the stench of memory. The images linger, overlaid in his mind with what his eyes perceive, like ghost projections on a film used twice.

He had not bothered asking anyone of the Fourth about his Captain's well-being. He could not haven taken their pitying eyes; he had felt his reiatsu flare out as if in a dream and something had died inside him. Broken, like his Captain's favorite tea set, inherited from his grandfather. Byakuya had been so disappointed in Renji, he could not talk to him for a week – not at all what he had intended, when he had pictured making and serving the tea.

He could still see the broken cups and pot, hot liquid spreading on the tatami and it now felt like his soul was mirrored in those shards. Shame floods over him along with the memory. Renji does not like remembering all the times he had displeased his Captain, but at least they were something _to_ remember.

Unblemished and pristine.

He wanted to remember him like this – his graceful hands when pouring tea; the ghost of a smile on his lips when he enjoyed the view of his blooming sakura trees; his genuine laugh when Renji told him he had turned down the offer to become a Captain of another Division right into Yama-jii's face. Those were memories he'd like to remember, but he could not disregard reality in favor of a dream. The reality in which he had failed.

He had failed to protect the one thing that was vitally important to him - to his growth and direction. Where was he to go, what to strive for, now that he had no one to go _with_? Soul Society lay in ruins and most of his friends and comrades were dead. Ichigo's miracle could not save them in the end.

Renji had known misery before, but never before had it felt so pressing and hopeless. Even Zabimura was silent in the face of it.

More optimistic spirits than his own would proclaim they could rebuild Soul Society in all new splendor, but it was too early for that. There was a time for mourning and a time for looking ahead. He had no energy left to do both.

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Thanks for reading!


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